UN says Rich Nations must tackle Poverty, appeals to European Union to help with peacekeeping by UN News / ABC News 11:11am 15th Oct, 2004   October 15, 2004 (ABC News)    United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has warned the world's richer nations they will have to do more to tackle poverty if they want to live in peace and security. Speaking in Dublin in the Irish Republic, Mr Annan said the developed nations had to live up to their promises on aid, debt relief, and fair trade.    He said there is a risk the world will not achieve the UN's Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. "That action must cover not only the peace and security agenda, it must cover other issues as well," he said. "We have 11 years left to get there. We can do it and we must do it and we will do it only if rich countries start doing their fair share."    Mr Annan has also appealed to the European Union to play a bigger role in UN peacekeeping operations. He revealed the UN has 56,000 troops and military observers in place in conflict zones around the world, but desperately needs 30,000 more. Mr Annan said the enlarged European Union should strengthen its contribution since less than one in 10 peacekeepers is from an EU country.    He said the case for greater involvement is stronger given that the regions troops offer specialist skills as well as the ability to be quickly deployed, and the secretary-general again called on the international community to provide financial assistance for the ongoing humanitarian effort in the Darfur region of Sudan.    14 October 2004    Annan appeals to European countries to provide more UN peacekeeping troops. (UN News)    With demand for United Nations peacekeeping outpacing the supply of forces, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today issued an impassioned plea to the National Forum on Europe meeting in Ireland for the continent's countries to lend their troops, civilian workers and expertise to the world body's operations.    "The EU [European Union] is in a position to provide specialized skills that our largest troop contributors may not be able to give us, and to deploy more rapidly than we can," said Mr. Annan, who noted that less than one-tenth of all UN peacekeepers come from EU countries, while in Africa, that proportion drops to one in 20.    The Secretary-General credited the French-led Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with saving lives and called it "a model of EU cooperation with the UN."    He reminded the audience of the surging requirements for UN peacekeeping. "In the last nine months, with five new operations either deployed or on the drawing board, the demand on our peacekeeping has jumped by about 50 per cent," he said. "We have around 56,000 troops and military observers deployed today, but we desperately need another 30,000 of them - not to mention many more civilian personnel, both police and others."    Mr. Annan especially underscored the gravity of the situation in Darfur, Sudan, where fighting between Government and rebel forces has uprooted more than 1.45 million from their homes and forced another 200,000 to flee to neighbouring Chad. "The humanitarian effort needs more money, and the African Union (AU) needs concrete support - including logistics, equipment and financing, as well as political pressure on the parties," he said. "Every country and organization that can help must do so, now."
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